Not All who Wander are Lost
by Skyborn Huntress
Summary: Drabble collection. A hundred missing moments, reflections, and all the Durin family feels before, during, and after the Quest for Erebor. Thorin, Dis, Fili, and Kili will endure, as they always have. They must, for the line of Durin is strong.
1. Tired

**Not All who Wander are Lost**

_Skyborn Huntress_

**A/N: **This collection is written for 100_situations on LJ using prompt table #1. As an added personal challenge, I've restricted the prompts to 200-word drabbles. (Every 25th entry has 300 words, because bonuses are fun.)

* * *

**001: Tired**

_Thorin remembers._

Sometimes, on dark nights, when the cold wind blows from the east and moans through the walls of their new home, Thorin remembers the drake.

He remembers fingers of flame stretching into the midnight sky; he remembers the crashing of stone and a roar that shudders deep in his bones; he remembers the burn of hot ash in his squinted eyes and the choking weight of smoke curled in his lungs; and sometimes, when the wind howls, he imagines he can hear a thousand restless spirits scream.

On those dark nights, his footsteps lead him away. His boots ease over the creaking floorboards outside the chamber he now shares with his sister, and something in him remembers to slow his steps. His heart hammers against his ribs; his breathing is shallow, rattling, ghostly fingers of ash closing around his throat.

And on those nights he stands in the doorway, looking in on the two figures curled together on the bed he built. They are haloed in moonlight; the youngest still pokes his thumb in his mouth. In sleep, they take to clutching each other's hands, and, suddenly, Thorin smiles.

_Not all is,_ he thinks, on those nights of hopeless memories.


	2. Back Alley

**002: Back Alley**

_Kili doesn't understand what's wrong with half-dwarves._

It's in a desolate alley that Kili first sees them, though then he doesn't understand.

"Why're they doing that? Why're they hurting each other?" he asks, tugging impatiently at Dis's arm. She hushes him, carries him from the market, but he thinks he sees the poor dwarf running away afterward, his head ducked low. Like many things, Kili doesn't think on it much again.

Until the angry men appear at their door. Kili is frightened of them, and Fili covers his ears and holds him in Rada's chair. Thorin is away, but Dis comes up from her forge to meet them with a burning poker. She stands stocky in the doorway, hands on hips, as unyielding as the bull.

"It is not my children you want."

One of the men says something, and suddenly Dis is shouting, furious words of Westron that Fili cannot block out and Kili doesn't understand. The poker jabs and scatters the men before her.

Later, Dis brushes back his raven hair and kisses his brow, and Kili wonders. "What'd they want?"

"They were looking for a child of Man, mizimuh."

"Am I?"

Dis doesn't, cannot answer. Kili's eyes grow wide and hurt.

"Ama? Am I?"


	3. Sunrise

**003: Sunrise**

_Fili and Kili are different in the woods._

Kili thinks those sunrises over the woods are the most beautiful.

He doesn't quite know how to explain it. Perhaps it's something in the way that everything is so vibrant, so real at the dawn, the earthen scent of wet grass and the waking birds in the brush.

Perhaps there's a primal thrill in hunting before even the sun begins his chase across the azure, with damp sweat and unkempt hair on the back of his neck and his bow in his hands.

Perhaps it's the memory of last night: the scattered ashes of a campfire and rough blankets and the thought of how Rada would murder them both if he knew of their carvorting with the youth of the Mannish village.

Or perhaps it's Fili, halfway between not-quite-awake and hungover when he returns, his golden hair a tangled mane, wrapped in the still-warm blanket he shared with a girl whose name he doesn't remember. He blinks at Kili and smiles.

It's strange to think it, but somehow the brothers are closest when Fili badgers him for breakfast, and Kili teases him about his latest conquest.

In the woods, there are no kings and princes, and the sunrises are beautiful.


	4. Late

**004: Late**

_In Erebor, it's too late for them to turn back._

"I don't like it here," Kili whispers when no one else can hear them.

Fili doesn't look at him, but he can hear the hitch in his brother's breathing at his back. Musty fur clogs in his nose: the pelt they share on the floor of Thror's Halls is damp and mouldy and, like everything else in this place, reeks of dragon-stink.

The silence spreads.

"I know."

Fabric rustles. Kili tosses and turns, searches for nonexistent comfort in the rock. Fili hisses at him. Rumbling snores fill the cave, but he cannot be certain Thorin isn't listening.

"I want to go home."

"This is home." Maybe the possibility of Rada – or whatever mad spirit now wears their uncle's semblance – overhearing puts the hardened edge in his voice. Fili sighs and burrows against his arm and hopes his brother will take the hint.

Kili presses. "We're going to die here."

Fili wants to scoff. To ruffle his little brother's hair and assure him there's nothing to worry about. Rada won't let them die. But the Thorin in his mind has mad eyes fuelled with hatred, and he does not recognize his nephews.

Burning fills the space behind his lids.

"...I know."


	5. Son

**005: Son**

_Thorin will never have a son._

Thorin Oakenshield will never have a son.

This, he has accepted. Many dwarves will never marry because they cannot; the dams of their race are too few, and marriage is reserved for the fertile. Many dwarves turn themselves over to their crafts, to wood and searing stone, and find contentment.

Few of them are kings, though.

That alone is his burden to bear. His, and his sister's.

He cradles the gurgling child with eyes like the summer sky – like Dis's eyes – and thinks,_ I'm sorry_. The eldest son of his sister will be his heir. Durin's Folk will expect a king of him, and he will learn that ere he learns his letters.

But it is five years later, when Dis's second is born, that Thorin weeps. For while one nephew will be raised for greatness, this one will subsist in his shadow. While one will learn their history and legends, this one will learn to live by the sword. When he is old enough not to slur the oath, he will live by his future king, and one day he will die for him.

_In your footsteps, Frerin._

Sometimes, Thorin wishes he had a son, for his nephews' sake.


	6. Hot

**006: Hot**

_Dis hates the long waiting._

When Dis's hammer smites the anvil, sparks fly.

The red-hot metal bar spits as she turns it atop the head, twists it, pounds it flat. Soon it will be a sword in the hands of a warrior or a Ranger, but for now it is a part of her through which her energy flows, and the metal succumbs to her iron will.

When it cools, she shoves it between the coals to reheat and pauses in her rhythm to swipe at her brow.

This sword will kill when it leaves her attentive hands. Dis is not afraid to kill, either, though she has never stood on the field of battle, and likely never will. She is the youngest daughter of Thrain, and should her brother fall in his Quest, she must remain strong for her people.

It is easier to be strong; worse is to wait, hanging on the words of ravens and the glimpses the fire-sight yields of her brother and sons. Sometimes, when the forge-fires burn hottest, she can almost feel their presence.

Beyond the mountains, Thorin is their last hope. _Her_ last hope. She must be strong.

Her hammer sings on the anvil, mirroring her steady heartbeat.


	7. Friend

**007: Friend**

_Dwarflings are brats._

There have never been many dwarflings in Ered Luin. Of course, having each other, Fili and Kili are never at a loss for training partners or playmates, and so the deficiency slips their notice.

That changes when the redhead starts tagging after them.

Gimli son of Gloin is fifteen years younger than Kili, still chubby-cheeked like a babe with his chin covered in peach fuzz. He tracks the brothers' duel earnestly until Fili takes pity on him and throws him a sword.

Gimli drops it.

Kili nearly falls over howling and declares a game of King-under-the-Mountain; Gimli is the Goblin King. They chase him and poke him mercilessly with their wooden swords.

Gimli goes home in tears.

Fili regrets their behaviour somewhat, more so when Thorin finds out. As usual, Kili's the one who started it, and Fili gets the lecture.

As usual, Kili forgets the next day.

Fili throws their shy onlooker a sword and gets an idea. "Kili's the Goblin King!"

"What – hey!"

Kili rounds on him, distracted. Gimli thwacks him in the knee.

"Ouch!"

"King-under-the-Mountain!" Gimli blurts, as if astonished by his own nerve.

Fili grins at Kili's dumbfounded expression. "You should've started running, stupid. Now c'mon!"


	8. Floor

**008: Floor**

_Fili and Kili are adamant._

Thorin steps around the kitchen doorway and lifts an eyebrow when his boot nearly lands on top of a raven-haired dwarfling, one of the two figures huddled beneath a pile of blankets on the floor.

"Fili, Kili, what is the meaning of this?"

"Don't wanna self-bed!" announces Kili. "It's cold 'n there's _things_ under it!"

With that, Kili resumes defiantly sucking on this thumb. Thorin sighs (isn't he supposed to have outgrown that by now?) and, as usual, looks to Fili for an explanation.

"Ama says we're gettin' too big to share a bed," Fili reiterates, sitting up straight with all the maturity his extra five years afford. "But me an' Kili don't want to move."

"It's too _cold_," Kili says again. "'N lonely."

"So..." Thorin lifts an eyebrow at their chosen sleeping quarters. "This is...?"

Fili chews guiltily on his lip. "We're protesting."

The eyebrow moves higher. "Are you?"

"Uh-huh! Not moving!" shouts Kili, gleefully.

"Then how shall we eat breakfast tomorrow?"

Kili's eyes widen. They haven't thought of that.

Thorin has to chuckle. "How about I speak to Dis," he suggests. "In the meantime, I'm sure your bed is much more comfortable for protesting."

Fili and Kili beam.


	9. Cheat

**009: Cheat**

_Thorin loves the secondborn._

Kili doesn't know it, but he is incredibly lucky.

Thorin knows this. Thorin thanks Mahal for this.

It was not always so; when Dis's second child was born, blue-faced and screaming, he had feared the boy had been cursed with misfortune. Kili was secondborn, the spare, and in Erebor this would damn him to be Fili's sword and shield.

In Erebor, he would be dragged away at twenty – as Frerin was – and taught life or death at the point of a sword, the thrust of an axe. In Erebor, he would have knelt before his future king and sworn an oath of servitude ere he was old enough to understand the words' depth.

But Kili was not born in Erebor.

He is a child of the wilds of Ered Luin. He is_ free_. He has learned language and logic by Balin's patient hand, and he has a loyal brother for his king who will never stand for their old way.

And so, when he sneaks into the woods with his battered bow, his uncle is willing to look the other way.

Because Kili may not be the most_ dwarvish_, but he is Thorin's miracle.

Mahal, let him stay that way.


	10. Think

**010: Think**

_Fili smokes when he thinks. (Or thinks when he smokes.)_

Thorin had given Fili the pipe for his seventieth birthday. It's a fine thing – hand-carved ebony and horn – and he's almost afraid to use it. Besides, he has an equally good pipe of his own. Eventually the gift ends up in a box in the corner of his room, and Kili steals it once or twice. His younger brother doesn't smoke; he just likes chewing on the thing, which is remotely disgusting in Fili's mind.

The spring of the Quest, he finds it again.

Fili sits on the porch steps, a curl of sweetened smoke lingering in the light of the early evening stars. The winter snow is melting in the vales. _Prime hunting, _he thinks. They'll miss it.

Without a sound, Kili's there, as if summoned by his thoughts. He leans his head against Fili's leg and prods him.

"What're you thinking about?"

Fili exhales. His lips twitch wryly. "Worrying."

"Don't worry. Rada knows what he's doing."

_I don't._

Kili yawns. "Pipe's gone out."

Fili looks, and he's right. Self-consciously he twists the ebony pipe in his hands. "I just...need to think, sometimes."

"I need t'look at the stars," Kili mumbles.

Fili smiles, looking up. "Aye...that, too."


	11. Disgust

**011: Disgust**

_Fili hates apples._

Apples.

_Why, Mahal, apples?_

Fili splays flat-out in the shallows. Cold, fresh air bites his cheeks. It's dark, but by the burning behind his lids it could well be midday, and he moans pitifully.

It's a wonder in itself that he doesn't drown; his limbs are uncooperative jelly, his clothing is soaked through to the bone, and his once-braided hair is ragged and tangled and in his mouth, and why in Durin's name does it taste like apples.

Hobbit-sized hands tug at his arms, but Fili won't, _can't_ move, and he thinks he mumbles something to that effect. The small hands huff and puff and roll him onto his back, so at least he's not in danger of drowning himself anymore, and then the presence is gone.

Fili's left to marvel that he's not dead.

And then there are larger, blistered hands around his face.

"All right there, Fee? No worse off than a couple ales'll do you, right?"

_Kili. Thank Mahal._

He reaches blindly and catches the stubble on Kili's chin. His brother's almost grown a beard these past months. He feels Kili grin and, suddenly, Fili awakens.

"M'fine. But don't let me near one. Stinking. Apple. Ever again."


	12. Shelter

**012: Shelter**

_Thorin shouted the wrong name._

Thorin can yet hear the deafening roar of the stone-giants when the dwarves tumble into the abandoned cave.

It doesn't take Fili and Kili long to find each other again. Fili takes his younger brother's head in his hands and leans their foreheads together with shaking hands. _I know,_ he whispers.

Kili is less restrained. He latches on to his brother as though the ground will tear them apart again._ I thought I'd lost you._

Thorin yearns to hold them both, but the King under the Mountain cannot. So he settles the Company, dissuades Gloin from starting a fire, and distances himself to brood.

While they prepare for bed, Thorin checks on his nephews.

He clears his throat, quietly. "Fili, Kili."

Fili nods to him. He understands that, here, in front of the Company, he is King foremost.

"Rada," Kili mumbles. "I was with you."

The hurt look on his face nearly kills him.

Fili hushes him. He doesn't mind whose name was shouted in the raging storm. They were all worried.

"I was _with you_, Rada."

Thorin closes his eyes. "I know."

He cannot tell them.

Fili is the heir to his people, but Kili always has his heart.


	13. Borrow

**013: Borrow**

_Ori hasn't been stalking him. Not really._

Ori has known the prince for years, though he, in return, never knew his name. Ori is a very private dwarf, and he doesn't like to draw attention to himself, which just means he is terribly, mortifyingly shy.

One winter, he knits him a pair of gloves. They come out too knobbly and Ori blushes and _this just won't do_.

He practices with the needles until he's perfected the art of glove-making.

Nori asks what his welfare project is, and Ori hits him with a lump of yarn.

When the Quest begins, they finally meet face to face. Ori reddens and hopes he doesn't recognize a shy dwarfling who long shadowed their training-grounds.

Nori thinks it's hilarious, and Ori hits him with his perfect gloves.

Soon the nights grow awful cold, and then one of their ponies spooks at nothing and bolts, dragging the prince into the river. Later he huddles by their bleak fire, wrapped in his brother's furs and spitting curses.

"H-here."

With a decisiveness that terrifies him later, Ori takes off his warm, carefully-knit gloves and proffers them.

The prince blinks up at him through dishevelled wet hair. "Th-thanks, Ori."

Ori won't blush. He won't.

"W-welcome, Kili."


	14. Chair

**014: Chair**

_Fili and Kili stumble across the throne room._

"This is grandfather's hall?"

Kili's voice is hushed, but even soft whispers carry. Fili hears bats scattering overhead.

"Great-grandfather," he corrects. "Grandfather Thrain was a prince when Erebor fell."

"Is that where he'd sit, then?" Kili points. His sharper eyes catch a throne in the shadow of the grand one, the one Fili tries hard not to look at.

"I...think that was for the queen."

Fili can't remember exactly. All the tales seem so long ago; and everything in this place is far more _imposing_ than anything he had imagined as a dwarfling.

But then they stand in front of Thror's golden throne, and he has no choice anymore. The dais would have positioned the dwarf-king high above his subjects. The inlaid designs are sharp, angular: Durin's marks.

Kili has the nerve to touch it first, trailing his fingers through ages of dust. Fili half-yearns to stop him. He has a terrible feeling Thorin will find out.

"Fee," Kili whispers, "you should sit there."

Something snaps in him. "That's Thorin's place. Not mine."

_We shouldn't be here._

He drags Kili away, but his brother looks sideways at him.

"Thorin won't live forever, you know."

Fili bites his tongue.

_I know._


	15. Alter

**015: Alter**

_Fili learns a new way to fight._

"He is...skilled," says Dwalin.

Thorin nods. The grizzled warrior does not give his compliments lightly, he knows. He looks at the boy.

Between them, Fili fixates his boots, clutching his practice sword behind his back. His face is flushed pink; he tries to hide it, but he is pleased with the swordmaster's assessment.

"I was never worried about that." Thorin draws his sword. "Fili."

Fili gulps and accepts the blade laid across his palms. He cleaves to it reverently, and Thorin clears his throat to remind him. "Which hand feels stronger now?"

Fili reddens anew, but he dutifully takes up the sword in his right hand, then his left, moving through a few cautious practice swings. Finally he lowers the blade and looks up at his uncle, sheepishly.

"Both?"

Dwalin is smiling behind his beard now. "I see why yeh asked me now."

"Will you train him?"

"I s'pose I could find the time. Yeh'd like that, lad?"

Fili, beyond honoured, manages a nod.

Dwalin claps him on the back. "First things first, we'll see yeh get a real pair o' those."

"A-a _pair_?" Fili stutters.

Dwalin's eyes gleam. "Well, why not put those strong hands to use, eh, lad?"


	16. Peace

**016: Peace**

_Thorin has too many regrets._

Summers in Ered Luin are long and prosperous. Durin's folk burrow deeper into the long-abandoned mines of their forefathers and somehow draw up enough iron to keep their dozen forge-fires blazing. The proud dwarves serve as simple blacksmiths, builders, toymakers, weavers; and there in a clustered village of wood and stone they endure. They trade their fabricated goods for foodstuffs with Mannish villages and the occasional Rangers who come their way.

It's not a wealthy existence; it's not the splendour of Erebor, but Durin's folk survive. Sometimes, Thorin almost believes they can flourish here.

But when the golden leaves brown and the winds shift, Thorin's eyes, too, turn cold and look east to the Misty Mountains.

When his mood darkens, Dis is there: warm hands on his time-weathered hands, a stubborn voice in his ear. _Think of your people now, brother,_ she reminds from afar. _Think of the ones who need you here._

Thorin heeds her. He casts off the mists of the past and gazes on the village sprawling in the grey shadows of a mountain not their own.

Yet in his leaden heart, he knows even if Ered Luin is their refuge, it will never bring him peace.


	17. Beach

**017: Beach**

_Kili is optimistic._

To Kili, the Long Lake is an ocean.

Fili declines to see it, but Kili spends hours wandering the shore while the Company recovers in Lake-town. He scuffs out flat rocks with his boots and practices tossing them so that they form connecting ripples on the glassy surface of the lake.

The clear air does his head best, and moving steals away the soreness, but sometimes it's lonely.

That is, until a small _a-choo_ alerts him to the presence of their burglar.

He grins to see Bilbo materialize on the rocks behind him. "I've never seen one before," he says. "A lake. There's a river, back in Ered Luin, but it's barely deep enough for swimming."

Bilbo sniffs. "I do'd buch like the sight today."

"Why not?"

"I was quite certaid we'd all drowd out there," Bilbo says with a shudder that's not from cold.

Kili shrugs and spots a smooth rock by his heel. He picks it up, turns it over. "I wasn't worried."

"Ah?"

"After all, you saved Rada's life before. I knew you'd get us through all right."

The rock skips across the water once, twice, _plop_. Kili smiles back at Bilbo.

"And we _are_ all right."


	18. True

**018: True**

_Kili was born for this._

The bow is too big for him, Thorin sees.

Kili clutches it awkwardly under one arm, beaming, as the old Ranger chuckles. "Right, go fetch your arrows," he says with a smile that wrinkles his eyes.

Kili obeys, as fast as the dwarfling's short legs can run. When he reaches the tree they've been using for target practice he stops short, stands on tiptoe, carefully tugs the stuck arrows straight back like the Ranger taught him.

Then he's back and _again, sir?_ the eager prince asks.

"And again."

Kili deposits the arrows but one, nocks it, and squares his stance. It takes a moment for his skinny arm to draw the bowstring taut, and then he quivers as he takes aim, his left eye shut, his right squinting down the shaft.

The Ranger steps around him and makes a slight adjustment to the height of his elbow, but Thorin can tell Kili has already memorized the stance.

"Aim true," says the Ranger.

The bowstring twangs, the arrow snaps forward and meets the centre of the tree with a dull thud. Kili's aim is true, Thorin sees.

His face shines. "Didja see that, Rada? Didja_ see_?"

And Thorin smiles. "I saw."


	19. Crazy

**019: Crazy**

_Thorin's gone mad._

"He's gone mad," Kili whispers as Thorin paces the length of Thror's Halls. His shoulders hunched, his eyes brooding, it's not their uncle Fili sees, but a caged bear.

"It's the dragon-sickness."

"He's gone _mad_." Kili lowers his head onto his knees, miserably fixating the floor.

"He'll be better," Fili promises, vaguely. "Once we find the Arkenstone."

"Fee..." Kili hesitates on the words. "If I start t'go that way – if I go mad – you'll have to..."

But he stops himself. They've lost what made their uncle whole. How can they hope to stop the madness?

Fili grips his shoulder. "You _won't_, Kili."

"Why not?"

"Because you're _Kili_. You don't care about gold or treasure or...or any of it. You love the forest and climbing trees and your bow. You don't need anything more."

Kili nods timidly, like he wants to believe. A sudden loud crash makes Fili wince: Thorin shouts and rages at their burglar. Uncle clanks in his stolen armour, his shadow looming and bristling like an angry dragon.

"Fee?" Kili prods at long last. "What about you?"

Fili smiles wanly and squeezes his shoulder. "Don't worry about me."

"Why not?"

"Because. 'Cause I've got you, and that's enough."


	20. Love

**020: Love**

_Dis loves her children._

Dis loves her children, as difficult as that might be sometimes.

She loves her golden-maned Fili, whose hair and nose remind her so much of Avnor, but whose serious tone reminds her of Thorin when he recounts his latest lessons with Mister Balin, or that Mister Dwalin wants him using two swords. She loves his focus as he watches her swing hammer at anvil, and she is more than proud when he swears someday to be a smith like Ama and wear the silver beads of her guild. She loves that, for all his talent and responsibility, it's Avnor's tenderness she sees in his eyes, even if he knew his father for less than five years.

It's the tenderness, she thinks, that will make him a great king someday.

And she loves Kili, whose looks are solely Durin. Kili, who isn't old enough for lessons yet but brings her feathers and mud-cakes and smiles hopefully for her approval. Kili, who seems to have inherited Frerin's mind for mischief and usually ends up tracking mud through the front hall or breaking things.

Dis loves her children, and as she kisses them for bed they giggle at the scratchiness of her beard.


	21. New

**021: New**

_Thorin gives Kili a present._

"Mine?" Kili clarifies, uncertainly.

"It's yours," Thorin confirms with an almost amused smile. "So long as you're interested in practicing."

He can still hope that it is just a stage; but as Kili traces his fingers over the bow Thorin can read an almost longing in his expression. It is a beautiful bow: ornate horn shapes the recurve, and runes frame the grip. In a word, it is dwavish, Thorin thinks.

"Well? Good enough for a prince?"

Kili blinks back up at him. "But – Rada – what about –?"

Thorin presses his hand to his shoulder. "Try it out first."

Kili nods and scrambles for his arrows, and Thorin can hear him shouting for Fili as he thunders downstairs. He smirks and follows more slowly.

When he reaches the yard, Kili has already picked a target among the orchard trees, and Fili watches as he takes aim. The bow draws smoothly for him; he does not have to fight a too-heavy string, and his shot follows steady and true.

The commotion has brought Dis from her forge. She stands at Thorin's shoulder as Kili strikes the centre of another tree.

"Frerin's bow?"

Thorin watches his nephew's face gleam. "It was time."


	22. Beggar

**022: Beggar**

_Dis is proud._

Dis is a princess of Durin, and she will never beg.

This is a philosophy her brother taught her. Thorin, not Frerin – Frerin, who was never without a smile or a laugh even in exile. Thorin lost his smile the day Erebor fell.

Dis remembers plumes of flame rising from their mountain, but she cannot recall her brother's smile.

Dis is no longer a princess of Erebor, but she is a princess all the same. She weaves the princess's braids into her hair each morning before she dons her rough blacksmith's cottons and descends to her forge.

She works by the heat of the fire and the clanking of metal, and sometimes, if she strikes the anvil hard enough, she imagines it's a dragon's skull she's pummelling.

When Men pass over her handiwork, she wants to cry and hit something.

It could be better, she knows. It _should_ be better, as befits a princess, but she never learned from a master smith. It was Thorin who taught her, on the road, in borrowed weak-fire forges of Men.

But princesses never beg. So she stands with feet planted, head high, and awaits her next customers with a face of hardened stone.


	23. False

**023: False**

_Kili wonders about their father._

"Ama, am I a bastard?"

Dis accidentally yanks the comb loose in Kili's hair. He bites his lip but doesn't cry. "Mahal's name, of course not! Whatever gave you that idea?"

"I don't got an adad." Kili considers. "And Fili don't, either."

"That's not true. You both had an adad." Dis's voice quiets as she returns to his dishevelled locks.

"Where'd he go then?"

"He's dead, Kili."

"How?"

Dis chooses her next words carefully. "It was...a warg raid on the village. You weren't born then. They came for our herds, but the herds were too thin. Your adad...helped Thorin with the defence. They saved our village, but his wounds...it was too late."

"Why'd we never hear 'bout him? We hear 'bout grandfather and great-grandfather all the time."

"Because," Dis sighs, "Avnor was a Man."

"Then we _are_ bastards," says Kili. "Right?"

"You are princes of Durin's folk, and don't let any dwarf tell you otherwise." Dis kisses his brow. "Know this: your adad might not have been a king, or a hero of legend, but he was a great man. When you're older, you'll understand."

Kili wrinkles his nose. "'N we'll hear about him?"

"You will. I promise," Dis smiles.


	24. Happy

**024: Happy**

_Fili refuses an order._

The morning after his eightieth naming-day, Thorin tells Fili of his plans to retake Erebor. His nephew absorbs the words with his hands over his face.

At last, Fili stirs.

"What if I say no?"

It is not the response he expects. "No...? There is no _no_."

"Erebor was your home. I can respect that, and your quest, Rada." Fili hesitates. "But...it's not ours...Kili and I, _this_ is our home, we're _happy_ here –"

The words are knives in his chest. His nephews were raised in Ered Luin; they have never seen the great mines, nor the arcing halls of their forefathers. Their wonders are the open sky and the forest depths. Mahal, Kili even climbs trees like an elf.

Thorin forces his voice to remain even. "Fili. You are my heir; the heir to Erebor. _That_ is your home. _That_ is where you will be happy."

"What have I been, if not happy?" Fili asks.

"Alive. You have survived." Thorin brushes the boy's warm cheeks. "And I fear it has cost too much."

Fili pulls away from the touch, wounded. "Let me go, Rada."

Thorin knows he has lost him. He sinks back, eyes closed. "Yes...send in your brother."


	25. Cancer

**025: Cancer**

_300 Edition: Thorin is ill._

Dwarves are not susceptible to the ills of Men. Their bodies are strong; their hearts, stout.

What they fear, then, is the illness of mind.

_Dragon-sickness,_ they name it. _Gold-lust,_ think the Men who judge simple avarice to be the dwarves' crippling vice. But they can see no deeper into their ancestral curse. They cannot understand the unseen force that would rend the stoutest of dwarf warriors' hearts.

It consumed Thror, the last mighty King under the Mountain; it drove Thrain mad in his long exile; and now Thorin Oakenshield feels the primal hunger stir within his chest.

He tries to fight it.

But though an oak-branch sits stolid on his arm, his mind is weak. _Dark._ And the sickness thrives in darkness; it lurks within his blackest memories, taunting him with the glimmer of the Arkenstone.

He cannot sleep. He paces like the caged beast within, but the memories follow him.

The head of mighty king Thror lies before him, evil orc-runes driven into his scalp. Frerin dies in his arms, his armour pierced with arrows. He watches his mother wither away in exile, and Thrain's mind soon follows her into grief. He speaks of lunacy and a glowing stone, and then he speaks no more. The mad king vanishes in the night with a party bound for Erebor, never to be seen again.

Thorin is the last.

The last...

Sometimes, in the late night, in the early hours of morning, he wonders if there's not something he's missing. Sometimes, the shroud of madness lightens and he can almost see them.

_Rada. Rada, can you hear me?_

Darkness falls again too soon. His face crumples, and he glares at the raven-haired boy who dared lay a hand on his arm.

No... Thorin _knows_.

He is the last Durin now.


	26. Pickpocket

**026: Pickpocket**

_Nori joins Thorin's Company._

Nori is a thief. He's not ashamed to admit it.

(Except, of course, on those occasions when Dori gives him_ that_ look, and no amount of wheedling that Dori didn't mind when he brought home those exotic teas will get the brothers out of an argument.)

But Nori can't help it.

Sometimes his fingers just...slip.

It's a gaping pocket one day; a loose wrist-watch, the next. Nori is quite proud of his little business, and if he's careful that Dori only ever sees the lovely new quill and hair-beads he bought for Ori, well, all the smoother.

Inevitably, though, he gets caught.

Inevitably, it's in a Mannish market, with a terrified Ori looking on as the Men pin him down and threaten to chop off his wandering hands.

It's not the first threat, and it's not the worst. (If only he could reach his knives...) He tells Ori not to look and struggles and, whoops, elbow goes in eye.

"Let the dwarf go."

Nori has never been happier, or more surprised, to see Thorin Oakenshield send off his pursuers.

"_You._"

(Nori isn't so happy now.)

Thorin waits until the Men are gone to reprimand.

"I have a job for you."


	27. Reverse

**27: Reverse**

_Fili and Kili get mixed up._

When dwarves are introduced to Fili and Kili, they are usually a bit bemused.

_Which one's the heir?_

_The blond, _Thorin says, a touch irritated.

Fili, unfortunately, can see the source of their confusion. Kili looks the part of a Durin much better than him. He has the family's raven hair, dark eyes, sharp, chiselled features. If he grows in a proper beard, his resemblance to Thorin will be frightening. And Kili is tall for a dwarf, so if he doesn't move about too much – since he's still at that coltish stage where he's liable to trip over his own lankiness – he can do a passable impression of imposing.

Fili, on the other hand, is shorter, blonder, and is oft mistaken for a Firebeard. He knows he takes after his adad, but only he and Dis seem to remember him. And try as he might, he can't seem to emulate Thorin's dead-serious expression. He thinks it's something about the broodiness.

Kili makes it easier on them. He flaunts his bow and lets his hair grow wild and tangled because he hates the braids.

_People are stupid,_ Kili says, later. _They can't see you try better'n me. Always have._

Fili wonders.


	28. Deliver

**028: Deliver**

_Kili runs deliveries._

Sometimes, when Dis and Fili are swamped with business in the forge, Kili runs deliveries.

It's not a hard job, and he doesn't mind it, really, venturing to the nearest Mannish villages with his mother's orders. Sometimes it's only messages he delivers: an update on how long an axe or armour job will take. He rattles off Dis's instructions by rote and remembers his respectful bows and _at-your-services._

It's the questions Kili doesn't like.

_Are you the apprentice? _they ask, frowning.

Even Men have an inkling of the significance dwarf-beads, even if they ignore the intricacies of their guilds; and when they see none of the silver smith's beads in Kili's wild hair, they begin to doubt.

Kili wants to snap that their ignorant hands aren't worth the quality of Dis and Fili's dwarvish craftsmanship.

But Dis doesn't like him losing customers, so he keeps his smile. _Only the messenger, sir._

Sometimes, Kili hates that the world thinks he's artless. A dwarf without a craft.

The truth is, there are no beads for what he's mastered.

When he takes the long road home through the woods, his bow in hand and his mind on the hunt, Kili doesn't really care.


	29. Arrival

**029: Arrival**

_Fili's first impression of Erebor._

Something about their arrival in Erebor seems anticlimactic, or maybe Fili is just too tired, too shaken and starved of proper food and sunlight to appreciate the crumbled halls filled with cobwebs and dried dragon dung.

When they reach Thror's Halls, the atmosphere lightens and the Company can see stout skeletons scattered among upturned tables and pits of ash. Those who remember bow their heads, and Balin weeps.

Kili recognizes the light for what it is, though, and Fili follows him. The corridor bends, and a flare of white light hits his eyes. Fili stops, blinded, until a hand closes over his own.

Kili leads him to the Front Gate.

Fili could cry when the wind breathes on his face. The autumn sun is warm. His knees shake, but Kili holds him up.

"Look, brother," he says in Fili's ear.

Fili opens his eyes. He shields them with his hand and, slowly, the valley unfolds before him. At their feet, the ground lies cracked and barren, but beyond sprawl golden fields and forests, and a defiant steam-misted brook trickles. In the distance the skeleton of Dale glows in the sunset.

Fili's knees buckle.

For the first time, he thinks, _Home._


	30. Fall

**030: Fall**

_Kili is going to fall._

"Kili, you're gonna fall!"

"Amn't!" Kili calls over his shoulder, already scanning the trunk above for his next handhold. He fits his fingers in a knot, grins when it holds, and hoists himself up.

Fili huffs. He looks across the field, hopefully, but Rada is back in town and Kili insisted_ I've got something to show you_ in the orchard.

Then the arrow landed in the tree, and Kili insisted on climbing after it.

"Rada'll blame me, you know," Fili assures his brother's ascending back. "You'll be crying on the ground and he'll say,_ Fili you were s'posed to watch him,_ and Kili _don't you dare_ –"

Kili takes both hands off the branch to pluck the arrow loose. He sways with the breeze, grinning.

"M'too old to cry, Fee."

"Maybe _you_ are," Fili mutters.

Finally, Kili comes down. Fili hates watching this: Kili's unruly hair is in his eyes and he can't _possibly_ see where he's putting his feet. Fili fixates the horizon instead.

"Fine. Don't cry. But don't say I didn't warn you when you get hurt."

Kili skids down the last few feet, and the arrow lands in Fili's hands.

"See, Fee? I didn't fall," Kili smiles.


	31. Knife

**031: Knife**

_Fili likes shiny knives._

Bilbo coughs. "So – how many of those do you have, exactly?"

Fili follows the hobbit's gaze to his vambrace, where the hilt of a hunting knife is visible. He grins, tugging it loose. "These?"

"Yes. I–I've seen them close enough already, thanks." Bilbo throws up his hands in a self-defensive gesture, as if he expects Fili to unload his arsenal on him again.

By now, Kili has pricked his ears and wandered over to investigate.

Fili shrugs lightly, sheathing the dagger. "Well, to be perfectly honest...I'm not sure."

Bilbo coughs again, and Fili has to be concerned for the hobbit's health. "You–you don't mean to say you've_ lost _some?"

Fili nods, solemnly. "Aye, it happens. Deep pockets. Don't realize they're there until I sleep on 'em."

"It's not pretty," Kili supplies.

"And then there's_ this _oaf," Fili nudges his brother's ribs, "who has a habit of filching 'em. And you've no idea his talent for losing things."

Bilbo now looks a little ill. "I – I think I hear Gandalf calling," he says meekly, and totters off in no small haste.

Kili stifles a laugh as a cough.

"Might want Oin to check that," Fili remarks, ruffling his hair.


	32. Torn

**032: Torn**

_Fili can almost reach him._

"_Kili!_ Grab my hand!"

Fili stretches out his hand and almost feathers his brother's but for the mountain roiling beneath them. Kili stumbles, takes a step back, and by then it's too late to move back toward Fili.

The fissure in the rock yawns wider between them. Stone hails from above and crumples away below.

Fili still has his empty hand stretched over the edge. On his face is writ such sharp terror that for an instant Kili can't move. Jump, say his brother's moving lips. The thunderstorm steals away his voice.

Kili begins to shake his head, freezing rain stinging his cheeks._ I can't._ The dark gap is already too wide. The truth sinks in his stomach. To dare it is death.

_I can't._

Kili takes a step back instead and feels it wrench in his chest when Fili pulls back his hand. The waking stone-giant rises up from his rocky tomb, a fury-raw bellow quailing the cliffs. Fili stumbles, catches himself between the crags, and looks back at Kili as the giant carries him into the sky.

Kili watches, frozen, until the pinprick dwarves on the stone-giant's leg swing out of sight.

And then he is truly afraid.


	33. Danger

**032: Danger**

_The Quest is at stake._

Kili does not fully grasp the gravity of their situation until the Eagles are depositing them atop the aerie.

And then his legs nearly give out.

"Rada!_ Thorin!_" he shouts, stumbling as his feet hit solid rock. He doesn't stop to check his balance. He runs for his uncle, who lies bloody and unresponsive and...and...

Kili can't see his chest moving.

Thorin is dead. Kili is certain of it, and he chokes on an awful half-sob as Fili holds him back. Gandalf reaches their uncle's supine form in swift strides and kneels over him.

"Fili –" Kili tries, but Fili silences him.

So long as they don't speak, so long as Gandalf whispers those strange words over their uncle's brow, they can hold on.

Kili doesn't know what magic makes Thorin open his eyes, or hug the hobbit, but he could fall to his knees and thank Mahal for the Grey Wizard.

When they espy Erebor on the horizon, Kili has a sudden urge to laugh. They've _made_ it.

But Fili looks out over the cliff behind them.

"Fee, Erebor's that way."

"I know. But..." Fili squeezes his arm, and Kili feels him shake. "I can't ever forget this, either."


	34. Neutral

**034: Neutral**

_Fili wishes he could arbitrate._

A good king is a perfect mediator, Fili knows. A good king listens, and judges, and doles rightful consequence in the end.

Only, he can't remain neutral when Ama and Rada are arguing about _him_.

Fili crouches atop the stairs and listens to the terse voices rising from the kitchen. Thorin paces in frustration, and his footfalls echo as if he is walking up behind his nephew.

"They can't survive this way, Dis. They will never learn our ways here. Have you heard their Khuzdul? Fili's is passable, but Kili...Mahal, he can't speak our tongue."

"They are too young, Thorin." Fili imagines Dis standing her ground. "You will not send them there alone."

"Dain will teach them. It is not Erebor, but at least they will learn..."

Fili curls his fists. He knows this is his fault. He _should_ try harder; but Balin's books are old and dusty, and the words are so hard to parse. Kili doesn't even try; reading gives him a headache.

A door slams. "_Stop fighting!_"

Kili. Brave Kili, who stutters in Khuzdul, mediates with his tears. Ama hugs him and Rada shuffles off to brood, and Fili knows.

They will not be sent away today.


	35. Mate

**035: Mate**

_Dis doesn't believe in soul mates._

Dis doesn't believe in soul mates.

It's simply impractical, and she doesn't understand why so many dwarves are willing to put such foolishness in their children's heads. Mahal could scribe the secret name of her lover on her heart if it pleased Him; for all Dis knows, the poor soul perished that day in Erebor.

Dwarvish marriage is a necessity, not a celebration. It is a steel-forged institution to ensure there will be enough bairns to be future kings and warriors and blacksmiths, and enough girls for them to have bairns. Love figures nowhere in that equation, Dis thinks.

She, too, will marry someday, if only because Thorin will need heirs.

Perhaps it's the exile that makes her cynical. Perhaps she has too long watched the unhappiness that is Thrain and Lady Brynja's marriage crumble.

Lagertha and Helgi think she is too harsh. _You haven't found the right dwarf yet,_ surmises Lagertha, who as a Firebeard shieldmaiden should be above this nonsense. Dis scoffs.

But perhaps Lagertha is right.

Perhaps she will love someday.

Perhaps her stone heart will melt.

Dis watches the blond-haired Ranger approach her forge with an armful of firewood, smiling despite the cold, and thinks,_ Perhaps..._


	36. Fly

**036: Fly**

_Fili's brother dreams he can fly._

Kili was always a little...strange, for a dwarf.

From the time he could chase after Fili, he was off beneath the green trees beyond their home, laughing and falling in the dirt and coming home with fistfuls of golden dandelions for Ama.

Kili loves the trees.

When he and Fili are a little older, they claim a great wizened oak in the orchard as their Lookout-Tree. Kili climbs to its top first. Fili copies him once, just to save face, but doesn't attempt it again.

When he turns twenty, Thorin shows him around the forge, but Kili later admits he hates every minute spent in the enclosed space.

At thirty, he doesn't take up a craft, but tells Fili he's been asking the Rangers for lessons with the bow. He wants to be an archer. He's terrified of what Thorin will think.

Other dwarves tunnel into the earth for their gems. Fili's brother climbs trees to get a better look at the stars.

Maybe it's strange, even _elvish_, but Kili never hears it. Fili makes sure of it.

"Sometimes," Kili admits when he and Fili have long outgrown their Lookout-Tree but sit up there anyway, "I dream I can fly."


	37. Loud

**037: Loud**

_Kili cries in the night._

The boy's cries draw him out of his study late one night. Upstairs, Thorin finds Dis is already up feeding him.

She offers a tired smile, seeing him framed in the doorway with his arms crossed.

"Strong lungs. He'll be a warrior yet."

As she speaks she runs her fingers in circles down his back. Thorin frowns; the raven-haired child looks smaller every time he sees him. Kili, Dis called him.

Thorin moves quietly into the room and stands at his sister's back. Dis's hair lies long and unkempt; she has not taken out her ragged marriage braid since...since that night.

Absently Thorin threads his hands through her hair, weaving the fallen strands together. Avnor is gone. The child is too early. Dis is broken for it.

"Spare me that look, Thorin Oakenshield."

"What look?"

Dis twists around, a familiar fire in her eyes. "_That_ look. A princess of Durin does not deserve your pity."

Kili cries anew.

"Shh, mizimuh," Dis whispers, stroking his damp hair. And then she hums for him, a song of misty mountains and sadness.

When she is done, Thorin touches her shoulder.

"You will survive." It is an order.

"_We_ will survive." Dis's eyes smoulder.


	38. Touch

**038: Touch**

_Fili can't breathe._

In the darkness, it's impossible to know if they're alive or dead.

Darkness _swallows_ the tunnel. Its shroud lies thicker and deeper than night, and even the air is heavy and sluggish, stale and rank with dragon-stink.

Dwarves were born to live with the weight of stone over their heads, but none of them are comfortable here, so near to the dragon's lair. Blind and restless, they huddle and try to sleep while the wyrm circles the skies overhead.

Fili can't breathe.

His coughing ruptures the stillness. It doesn't help. This air clogs in his lungs like ash and he wonders, not for the first time, how long until the mountain stifles them.

Thinking on it doesn't help his quickening breaths. Fili feels light-headed.

Maybe he is stifling.

"Brother?"

Kili touches his arm in concern.

Fili makes a choked sound in response. It's too dark to see him. Too dark to tell how close the walls have gotten.

He swears they've gotten closer.

Warm hands on his face distract him. Pull him back to the place where he's still alive, if only for now. In the darkness, Kili presses their foreheads together. Holds him.

"Brother, I'm here," Kili whispers. "Always."


	39. Seek

**039: Seek**

_Fili seeks Thorin's approval._

This time, Fili is certain, as he knocks the practice sword out of Kili's hand.

His brother groans in defeat and Fili looks, quickly, up at Thorin.

"Good," says Rada shortly. "And again."

_Nothing._

Fili's face falls, and Kili sticks his tongue out at him as he crawls after his sword.

He doesn't understand. He follows through the same stances he uses against Mister Dwalin, modifying, of course, for Kili's shorter height. He's _positive_ he's done everything right.

There's nothing more frustrating.

Fili knows he is a prodigy. Mister Balin says so, beaming, when he wraps his head around a piece of ancient Khuzdul wisdom and explains it in his own logic. Dis approves of his able work in the forge. Even Mister Dwalin can find no complaint with his dual-wielding technique. Anything he puts his mind to, Fili is used to accomplishing, _perfectly._

Only, Thorin never smiles for his nephew.

Fili's never fought harder to achieve anything.

They duel again, at Thorin's nod. Predictably, Kili's sword hits the dirt; but when Thorin turns away, Fili throws his down, too.

"Are you not _pleased_, Rada?"

Thorin turns back, perplexed. _Surely_ he sees.

"Why?"

_...No._

Fili crumples, hands over his face.


	40. Argue

**040: Argue**

_Dis doesn't want him to go._

"I will not give this quest my blessing." Dis turns away sharply and marches to the window.

"Sister..." Thorin tries, quietly.

"No, Thorin, you do not understand. This is the same madness Ada spoke before he vanished."

"I am not Thrain," Thorin reminds her, an edge to his voice.

No, he is not Thrain. He is not the mad king, callous to his own children. He is her brother.

He is all she has left.

Dis leans her hands on the sill. "I should go with you," she whispers.

"No." Thorin steps toward her, takes her hands, and would lean their foreheads together, but Dis turns her face away. "There must always be a Durin here, sister. You must guide our people. You must remain strong..."

The words trail away. He will not voice it. He will not suggest that he may not return; that the quest may fail, and Dis may be the last of the line of Durin.

She says nothing. She has argued, she has laid out her qualms, but her fiery will burns to ashes. Thorin holds her, hands rough but steady.

Dis touches his weather-worn cheeks. "If you call, I will answer. Know that, brother."


End file.
